Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Alberta PCs favoured as election kicks off

It couldn't be avoided indefinitely. The time has finally come for the polls, and ThreeHundredEight.com, to tackle a provincial election in Alberta once again.

The new projection for the Alberta provincial election is now live, and you can see all the details (as always) by clicking on the chart at the top of the page. Before getting into the intricacies of the model and the difficulties this election poses, let's quickly take a look at the numbers.

The Progressive Conservatives under Jim Prentice lead the pack, with between 30% and 34% support. This should be enough to give the Tories between 35 and 59 seats, straddling the line of 44 seats needed to form a majority government. At 46 seats, the model narrowly favours a PC majority at this stage.

Wildrose, under newly minted leader Brian Jean, is second with between 27% and 30% of the vote and between seven and 25 seats. The maximum range does put Wildrose in a position to win, but that would require a, well, Alberta-esque miss by the polls.

The New Democrats, also under a new leader in Rachel Notley, are in third with between 18% and 21% support. This could net them between 11 and 15 seats, making the Official Opposition role well within their grasp.

The Liberals, under new/old leader David Swann, round out the table with between 15% and 17% support, enough to give them between nine and 12 seats.

Support for other parties (and more on that later) sits at between 4% and 7%, and could result in one seat for the Alberta Party.

Those are the broad strokes, and you can take a look at the Alberta projection page to see the regional and riding breakdowns.

Haven't we learned our lesson?
From a polling perspective, the 2015 Alberta provincial election is going to be a rough one. It will probably be impossible to say anything about the polls without referencing or being heckled about the debacle in 2012.

So, what happened?

There are as many theories about what happened in 2012 as there are about the Kennedy assassination. Some of those theories seem to explain most of what happened, but we are still left with a question mark.

There is no doubt among pollsters that for much of the 2012 campaign, Wildrose under Danielle Smith was leading in the polls. Had an election been held at midpoint, and had voters cast their ballot as they said they would, Smith would be premier today instead of having lost her bid for the PC nomination in the riding of Highwood.

But something certainly happened in the last stage of the campaign. Changing government after 41 years is quite a big decision, and handing the reins over to the untested and relatively unknown Wildrose was, for many voters, too much. When the views of a few candidates were disseminated, a lot of the worst fears were confirmed: Wildrose was not ready, and voters swung back to the PCs. Coupled with Liberals and New Democrats voting PC to block Smith from the premier's office, as well as the well-oiled machine that was the PC Party, it was enough to give the Tories another big victory.

Why didn't the polls pick this up? For the most part, they couldn't. The election was held on April 23, a Monday. The last polls by Abacus Data and Campaign Research wrapped up on April 19, the Thursday before the vote. ThinkHQ was done on April 18, the Wednesday. Léger's polling was out of the field on April 16, a full week before the vote, and Return on Insight was done two days before that. If there was a late shift going on, these pollsters were out of the field too early to catch it.

This was particularly the case for Léger, which was doing the traditional live-caller polling. Its final poll of the campaign put the gap at just six points between the PCs and Wildrose, the narrowest margin anyone was showing at the time. If Léger had polled that final weekend, what would it have found?

Complicating matters, however, is that not every pollster was out of the field early. Angus Reid did its final polling on the Friday and Saturday before the vote, yet gave Wildrose a nine-point lead. Forum Research, also polling on the Saturday, also put the gap at nine points.

It strains credulity a little to believe that in a period of 48 hours, the electorate swung from a nine-point Wildrose lead to a 10-point PC victory. The final Forum poll done on April 22, the eve of the election, did show the gap narrowing to just two points, hinting at the surprise that was to come. But that swing should have been picked up a little earlier, as the internal polling in Alberta was reportedly picking up. And the PCs won the advanced vote by a comfortable margin as well (44% to 37%, vs. 44% to 34% among votes cast on election day).

That does leave some uncomfortable questions about what happened with the polls in those final days. Was there a bit of herding going on? Were the online panels and IVR methods being used ill-equipped to reflect the voting intentions of Albertans? Were opinions so weak that, even if the polls were right at the time, they were unable to make any real guess about what would happen in the voting booths?

These questions are impossible to answer, but they do lead us to approach this campaign (and every other one since) with a good deal of caution.

That election was the first one in which I relied heavily upon ranges, and that turned out to be a good idea. On election day, the Forum poll and these ranges led me to be one of the few commentators suggesting that Wildrose might actually fail to win. And after the election was over, the model showed that it could do pretty well with the right poll numbers, awarding the Tories 65 seats to 18 for Wildrose and five for the NDP. The actual results had been 61 for the PCs, 17 for Wildrose, five for the Liberals, and four for the NDP. The model missed on the amazing resilience of a handful of Liberal MLAs. The party's vote tanked everywhere, but those five MLAs retained far more of their vote than they should have.

So I'm confident that the model can do the job again in 2015, if the polls can do their job. Just because they missed in 2012 does not mean they will miss in 2015. There is nothing about Albertans that makes them more unpollable than other Canadians. The miss in 2012 was primarily caused by the dynamics of the 2012 race. Those dynamics have changed. If the polls miss in 2015, it will be because of the dynamics of this race, and not because pollsters were foolhardy enough to try polling Albertans again.

The 2015 model and the dynamics of the campaign
In some ways, the model should do a better job projecting seats in 2015 than it did in 2012. The data is better, as we now have results for Wildrose in all ridings throughout the province. But there are a few factors that complicate things:

A new PC electorate. The PCs in 2012 were a coalition of Red Tories and Liberals/New Democrats who disliked the idea of a Wildrose government more than they did a PC government. It seems that these fears, for the time being, have gone away. The Liberals and NDP took 20% of the vote in 2012. They are currently projected to take 35% of it, and almost all of that extra vote is coming from the PCs. The model may not be able to capture all of these very specific shifts.

Wildrose in a different light. In 2012, Wildrose was a relatively unknown party with a charismatic leader who did not seem to align with all of the politics of her party. It made for an odd combination. Were Wildrose supporters voting for Smith, the Wildrose platform, or against Alison Redford? Now, the party seems quite a bit more monolithic. But compared to Smith, Jean is an unknown. And compared to 2012, Wildrose is a party that is no longer looking like a winner, but rather a party in the midst of political post-traumatic stress. Will this shift its electorate in unexpected ways?

The rise of the NDP. The New Democrats are currently polling at a level about twice as high as their results in 2012. If this surge occurs proportionately to their 2012 results, the model will have no trouble accounting for it. If it does not, it could miss some things. The party is doing very well in Edmonton - will that lift all boats equally?

The oddity of the Liberals' 2012 results. One of the strangest things about the 2012 election was the ability of five Liberal MLAs to resist the wider shifts that almost destroyed the party. And three of those MLAs are not running again in 2015. Though the model does take into account the lack of an incumbent, it is based on a generic incumbent and not these super-incumbents that the Liberals had in 2012. That means that the ridings these three MLAs are vacating could be at play to a greater extent than the model suggests, and that the Liberals, if they take as much of the vote as the polls give them, could win some ridings in unexpected places.

There aren't too many other oddities for this campaign. The riding boundaries are the same as in 2012, and the four major parties that ran full slates in 2012 will do so again in 2015.

One potential wildcard is the Alberta Party. They aren't polling at a level that makes them much of a factor yet, but in the fall's by-elections the party did show it can pull in a big share of the vote when it puts in an effort. Leader Greg Clark is running again in that Calgary riding he almost won, and the model does think he has an outside chance of winning it this time.

Nevertheless, I have made the choice not to include the Alberta Party as a separate entity in the projection model. Many will undoubtedly question that choice. But the party only fielded 38 candidates in 2012, or 44% of a full slate, and does not seem to be planning to run a full slate in 2015. Generally, I do not have a party listed separately in the projection if it did not run a candidate in at least two-thirds of ridings in the previous election. Less than half is really pushing it.

Another requirement is that a party needs to be listed separately in the polls. Granted, the last two polls did include the Alberta Party separately, but the vast majority of polls conducted since 2012 have not. That would indicate that the vast majority of polls in this campaign will not include the Alberta Party separately, and it would be a bad idea to try to estimate this party's support going forward if most polls do not have any data for it.

If the evolution of the campaign warrants the Alberta Party being added to the projection separately, I will do so. For now, it doesn't make the cut.

But let's hope that the polls will. Another miss in Alberta would be disastrous for the industry, particularly in a province with a lot of business interests which might be keen on some market research. Hopefully that will galvanize pollsters to do a good job, and thus give voters a clear idea of what is going. I'll do my best here.

55 comments:

I predict the Alberta Liberals will be in single digits before long and will be lucky to hang on to 2 seats. They have a colourless interim leader, are flat broke, have only 25 candidates nominated so far and will paper candidates in over 80 out of 87 seats and they are being totally upstaged by the Alberta NDP under Rachel Notley and even by the Alberta Party and by Wildrose, they have no "unique selling proposition" at all. You heard it here

If this is correct, do you think most Liberal support would go to the NDP? That could make for an interesting race, since Liberal + NDP support in the province is currently pegged at 35%, more than the PCs!

The Liberals won't lose 100% of their support, as there will always be a segment of die-hards. However, I can see a lot of their softer supporters drifting to the PCs, the NDP or even a few to Wildrose, even if the Liberals manage to pick up some from the similarly centrist Alberta Party.

The whole point of this election is that Prentice is assuming that only the Wildrose and the Liberals can conceivably beat his PCs and that they can't because they are both in chaos right now. He is also assuming that Albertans would never coalesce under the NDP, and sadly, considering how right-wing the province is, that might really be the case. If there really is enough outrage over the budget, though, it could easily backfire on Prentice and the PCs.

I live in Edmonton-Centre and will be voting Liberal, but I generally agree with your assessment DL. Reports of the party's demise have been greatly exaggerated in the past, but I can't see them winning anywhere beyond Blakeman and Swann's seats this time around. The NDP are a force to be reckoned with in the city of Edmonton right now and I wouldn't be surprised to see them win the majority of the city's seats.

There will be a realignment of some sorts involving the Liberals after this election.

I don't buy the theory that Liberal support will collapse. I'm not a Liberal but, if they can garner 10% last election they probably do at least that well and likely better. Don't underestimate Dr, Swann either, he may not be Boris Johnson charismatic but, sometimes voters prefer slow and steady-remember Stelmach?

This looks like a perfect time for the electorate to make a statement about the deciept and old ways of doing politics. If the Wildrose can win this election - even in a minority - it may make politicians across the country sit up and take notice.Ontario had the same opportunity last June - but decided to accept the political games rather than demanding better.

The Wildrose winning doesn't send any message beyond 'never increase taxes.' It's a party made up of long-time PCs who weren't terribly bothered by backroad games, so long as they had power. When the far right lost sway with the PCs, they went and formed their own party, but it's all the same players.

I am not sure of Alberta Liberals specifically but if they are conventional standard Liberals they would split in 2 directions with the PC and NDP gaining votes from people looking to park their vote somewhere. I've seen various federal polling on this and of course it does shift from time to time, but it would be about 2 votes NDP to every 1 vote PC...if you make a huge number of assumptions about the typical Alberta Liberal voter.

Alberta has never had a minority government, and I don't expect them to start now.

Albertans tend to make their decisions en masse. Whichever way they break, I expect a solid majority for someone. Probably the PCs. Maybe WR. Probably not the NDP, but they've done crazier things before (both the 1921 and 1935 elections were wacky).

Newfoundland and New Brunswick have only had one minority government each. The problem with null statistics is that there is no basis for comparison. It's probably another PC majority, but a minority situation is more likely than a WR majority.

I'll second Ira on this. If Eric's projection's correct and if the polls don't change (this one is unlikely but still), a majority government on 31% of the vote would be the second lowest support for a majority government in Canadian history.

But the lowest was also in Alberta, and it was just 29%, back in 1921.

Wildrose is damaged---this won't be a grudge match. With its relegation to the corner where it can steam away all it wants, the question is how many voters will loosen up on the strategic voting ( previously to keep WR out) and express their liberalism in parties other than the PC. That being said, with the subtraction of WR, PC is now the de facto Liberal party in Albetar, that is, it's theirs to lose.

It would be interesting to analyze liberal vote splitting potential in ridings where it might benefit WR. And from that, it would be interesting to speculate on the chances of a minority PC government.

Given the PC's are listed as only 4 points ahead of Wildrose this should still be a race. Like the knight who after having his arms & legs cut off kept trying to fight Wildrose isn't dead yet. The PC's better watch out as the voters have sharp teeth and will bite if they feel taken advantage of. It would be funny to see Wildrose win after the mass defection a few months ago.

Wildrose is not in nearly as bad a position as some commenters have made out. Albertans are looking for an alternative to the PCs and their natural leaning is conservative. Wildrose can win this election, as Eric's projection demonstrates they are only a couple points out from doing so. Campaigns are crucial but Brian Jean has just as much experience campaigning as Jim Prentice. When Alberta changes governments they go whole hog- that history alone favours a Wildrose Government over a minority Parliament or some fantastical centre-left creation.

We are only responding to the information available in the polls. If they are inaccurate, any analysis based on them is inaccurate. However, on what basis do you presume everyone else is wrong, while you know what's actually happening?

I don't believe you live in Alberta and that is why I take you statement above with a grain of salt. Have you ever lived in Alberta?

Wildrose is "damaged" but, Albertans want a conservative alternative to the PCs (assuming one considers the PCs conservative at all), that favours Wildrose. It is the PCs who are severely damaged with their poor economic and fiscal management and aristocratic leadership style. How many times can a party re-brand before the electorate realises it's just lipstick on a pig? Wildrose picked an experienced campaigner and politician in Brian Jean as leader and have an organisation behind them.

In any case Peter the phrase is; "lose your rose coloured glasses" not "Pink" (sic). So, I am afraid you are wrong!

You and I are more often than not on the same page. Not this time. Prentice's gain is nothing more than a crass political obsenity. It's beyond cynical and opportunistic.

Prentice isn't there to save the day for the PCs. How could he? The Redford sins have left him very vulnerable for her past mistakes. He has taken on a Kim Campbell quality. My gut is telling me that the PCs are in real trouble -- like never before in a recent election.

The floor-crossing damaged the MLAs who did it, not the party they left. The party they left now appears to be better run and more disciplined than it ever has before.

Faced with an openly opportunistic election call from the government (Alberta has fixed election date legislation which was flagrantly ignored here), WR has a real chance to impress.

They're not in a winning position yet, but they could be.

And Prentice is exactly the sort of Premier Alberta defeats. He's new. No Albertan Premier has both won and lost elections - every defeated Premier was new. Jim Prentice could be the new Harry Strom (the last Alberta Premier to be defeated).

"Vote Wildrose! We probably won't defect to the PCs after the election! Maybe. No promises." :3

Frankly just about anything could happen in this election IMHO. Canada has seen the third place party win the most seats in a provincial election before. We probably won't see anything that interesting here, but I think there's a pretty wide range of outcomes possible for the PCs, Wildrose and NDP.

I'm a rank and file NDPer and I can't believe that I'm seeing, if the Alberta NDP forms government or even hold the balance of power I'll pass out from shock. It so far out of believability it would mean the whole electoral landscape has shifted.

I swear if that's the outcome on May 6th once I woke up from passing out, I'm betting money on a NDP majority on October 19th with 206 seat. Forget orange wave it's going to be orange flood!

Idiosyncratic events in Alberta are producing this NDP surge. I wouldn't bet on a NDP federal majority even if they do form Government in Alberta. for one they can't honestly swear either the loyal oath or privy council oath since, they are republicans. To do so would be contemptuous and perjury. So, I don't know how they'll form a cabinet?

Bede, I consider myself a republican -- as in, I'd rather Canada were a republic, although I don't count it a particularly important issue. Nevertheless, I didn't have a problem swearing the oath of allegiance when I became a citizen, and two more times when I took a government job. Hypocritical? Not when you recognize that the monarchy symbolizes the state, and I have no difficulty swearing allegiance to the state. The fact that I wish it had different symbols does not undermine my loyalty to the Canadian state.

Well then, he either lied and perjured himself while taking the oath or he does not believe in the NDP's long held platform and the Winnipeg Declaration, that would make him insincere at the very least and at worst something more sinister. republicans if they are honest with themselves and their constituents should follow the example of Sinn Fein and boycott Parliament because they can not in good faith take the oath, they either have lied taking the oath or to their constituents on the campaign trail!

bede, like Mulcair in the privy council, Sinn Fein are sitting members of the Northern Ireland Assembly with four ministerial posts who all swore the Pledge of Office.

Republicanism isn't monolithic. You can support something and still realise you need to do something contrary in order to realise it. For example, the CPC supports balanced budgets, but they ran deficits when they had to. Or the 2004 platform lines "funds must benefit all Canadians" or "Stephen Harper will appoint only elected Senators to the Senate".

No one element of a platform is so paramount it overrules all other objections and conflicts.

My personal republicanism is much more practical and realistic. Like appointed elected senators, we could appoint an elected Govenor General (instant runoff ballot with each province/territory advancing one candidate for national selection).

You don't swear the loyal oath in Northern Ireland or the privy council oath if you become a member of the Northern Ireland executive-these were important topics during the power sharing negotiations because Sinn Fein, for all their faults, are people of their word!

When one swear either the loyal oath or privy council oath they make a commitment to upholding the values of Canada as embodied through our constitutional monarchy. Any republican who swear these oath without believing or supporting their content commits perjury. It's just like becoming a Canadian citizen-the Courts have repeatedly ruled you must swear the loyal oath-if you don't you don't get citizenship. My step-grandfather lived in Canada for 60 years but, as an American he couldn't honestly swear the loyal oath so never became a citizen-that is the difference between a man of good character and honesty and someone who flippantly perjures himself to achieve personal gain.

We could not appoint elected senators as per the Supreme Court ruling last Spring nor could we appoint an elected Governor General without constitutional amendment-the constitution is very clear on this last topic that any change to the office of Governor General requires unanimous consent of the Provinces, Senate and House of Commons. An elected Senate and or Governor General would fundamentally change our system of government: The Senate would no longer feel obliged to defer to the judgement of the Commons nor would the Governor General both institutions would have elected legitimacy and would no longer be obligated to follow long held constitutional conventions. That is why the Supreme Court ruled that such a change to the Senate requires constitutional change and negotiation!

MGK,

Yes I am afraid you are a hypocrite and a perjurer. More importantly you have got into Canada under false pretences and that could lead to deportation.

It is sad you think so little of yourself that you must lie instead of upholding your beliefs and that you continue to perjure yourself in your employment. The Crown is a symbol of the state but, is also part of the state-people who don't believe in Canadian values should not be citizens-it's as simple as that. One wonders how you can work as a civil servant effectively when you don't believe in the Crown-the orders you are given originate from the Crown by politicians who act in the Queen's name.

Eric,

Yes the PQ are well kinown for their untruths and it comes as no surprise (to me at least) that when they form Government they stick to these habits.

No, I did not lie when I swore or affirmed the oath. (I've done both; that's a side issue.) I affirmed that I would be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors. I had every intention -- intentions that I believe I have followed through on -- of acting loyally toward the Canadian state, regardless of who is the titular head of state.

Now, if the oath had continued... "and I'm so glad that the Queen of Canada is someone who achieved that role by virtue of her birth" then I would have been lying, because that is not my feeling about the monarchy. But that is not the oath.

BTW, none of this has anything to do with my being admitted to the country. You may be unaware that citizenship is normally granted only years after immigration. I doubt that anybody asked me, when I became a landed immigrant, what my feelings were about the monarchy. I say this with a little uncertainty because I don't actually remember much that happened when I was 3 years old, but I do think I was unaware at the time that Canada even had a queen.

If you swore to bear alliegence to the Queen's heirs and successors aren't you in effect recognizing approving and legitimaizing; " I'm so glad that the Queen of Canada is someone who achieved that role by virtue of her birth"? It seems to me you are.

I suggest you look at the case law regarding objections to the loyalty oath, specifically McAteer v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 ONCA 578 (CanLII). Specifically, swearing loyalty does not suspend your right to subsequently object to the current form of government.

The Supreme Court ruling was based on both term limits and binding elections. Following the Alberta example, a province can hold elections for "Senators in Waiting" who are then appointed in the normal fashion when an opening is available. Likewise, term limits cannot be binding without constitution amendments, but Senators could voluntarily step aside after a given timeframe.

I am in favour of constitutional reform, but it seems like Harper would rather take a pass on the promise rather than to try and fail.

That is more a question of balance of power. The specific mandatory minimums challenged so far have been held up, but it is the general concept that has been ruled against. The government will have the chance to amend the law.

However, my comment was specifically related to Senate reform, of which Harper was a big supporter until he found out the difficulty in actually doing it.

Woot, woot! Here comes my new Alberta model! It takes into account the last 3 elections instead of the last 4, I don't know how that will affect the results, we'll see. So, here are my projections using the aggregate available on April 12th:

39 WR30 PC12 NDP6 ALP

That's a pretty significant difference between Eric's and my model. I guess we'll see come election night (or results...) which one was more correct.

As someone who was "recently on the ground" in Alberta I believe the PCs are in big trouble. I think a Wildrose government is more than just plausible but, likely. 6 seats for the Liberals and 12 for the NDP seem about right. If Sherman and Kang were re-offering they'd pick up those seats as well, without them Meadowlark will probably go PC, Calgary-McCall has the potential to stay Liberal but could fall to Wildrose or the PCs.

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